Bob Jones bar fracas with ‘ugly blonde’
Businessman Sir Robert Jones has been embroiled in a heated confrontation with a woman in a Wellington bar.
Jones claimed last night that a ‘‘huge great ugly blonde thing’’ threw a punch at him in a city restaurant.
A witness described the clash with a businesswoman, which started inside Juniper Gin Bar and Restaurant on Thursday evening ‘‘before going out on the street and continuing the heated argument’’.
Jones said he had been sitting inside the restaurant for dinner, with a group of people including his partner and children.
A boisterous group of women was seated in the same restaurant, he said.
‘‘They did as women always do when they get too much drink in them,’’ he said.
‘‘A woman started screaming on and on. I asked them to tone it down. They didn’t so I asked them again.’’
Things grew more heated from there, until one of the women took offence. According to Jones, she started attacking him.
‘‘Some huge great ugly blonde thing threw a punch at me,’’ Jones alleged.
He claimed the woman was drunk and swinging wildly, so the blow didn’t find its mark.
The incident comes in the same week a 68,000-strong petition to strip him of his knighthood was handed to Parliament, after he wrote a controversial column saying Waitangi Day should be replaced with a new holiday called Ma¯ori Gratitude Day.
Jones is a boxing enthusiast who managed Joseph Parker, but this week said his former protege had ‘‘zero chance’’ of beating Anthony Joshua in today’s world title fight.